Hikaru Nakamura, the U.S. number one, and as of now, number ten in the world on the Live Rating list, is in a five-way tie for second at the Tal Memorial
super-GM tournament in Moscow. Heading into Tuesday's rest day,
everything was more or less going as planned, as Hikaru held his two
black games against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Sergei Karjakin, knocked
off the struggling Pavel Eljanov in round two, and had ex-World Champion
Vladimir Kramnik on the ropes in the fourth.

Kramnik was in serious trouble but escaped with a perpetual check in
mutual time trouble. After the game, both players analyzed the
complications in the press room and on the live video feed (replay available at time index 18:55:00). Replay the game below.

Karjakin was pressing Nakamura, who surprised fans by essaying the
Berlin Defense to the Ruy Lopez, characterized by an early exchange of
queens, but he misplayed the line and was forced to defend a worse
endgame for five hours.

Nakamura seems quite relaxed, as the eighth seed in his first
super-tournament since Corus last January. Here's a snapshot from the
first four rounds from Nakamura's perspective, with comments from
Karjakin and Kramnik.